Nearly forty years ago, Amadeus premiered to universal acclaim. It was one of cinema’s boldest gambles: a lavish production about Mozart that dared to be anarchic, provocative, and deliciously unruly—and yet succeeded in carrying the full weight of tragedy.
It bore no resemblance to the gloomy, didactic portraits of the “Great Composers,” where genius is usually presented as a dust-covered monument, crushed beneath the burden of its own greatness. Here, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart appears as an 18th-century happy rock-type—brilliant, irreverent, and explosively creative.
A year later, however, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, drawing Czechoslovakia into the Eastern Bloc. Branded a “traitor,” Milos Forman was forced to flee to the West, eventually finding refuge in the United States…
This Saturday, 24 January 2026, at 10:00 (Athens time), on the occasion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birthday on 27 January, and in connection with the film’s release during that period in his honor, we examine how the pioneering spirit of the Czechoslovak New Wave permeated nearly Forman’s entire later filmography.
Produced and presented by Ariadni-Sofia Kouri
Broadcast: Saturday, 24 January 2026, 10:00–11:00 (Athens time)
